Wednesday, July 11th, 2012
My friends (and former co-workers, in fact) Dan Henrick and Kate O’Leary animated this new web series for the AV Club, Stand Down, which features stand-up comics talking about horrible gigs (and how they handled them). This first one is an adaptation of an anecdote from Patton Oswalt.
It’s a fantastic execution of a brilliant idea, and I hope you’ll keep it on your radar. New episodes are posted every Wednesday. Next week, will feature Maria Bamford.
Wednesday, June 27th, 2012
You can tell it’s getting closer to Oscarbait season when the trailers start popping up in mid- to late-summer.
This one, for Hyde Park on Hudson features Bill Murray doing a charming (but not slavish) take on FDR. Knowing the Academy’s love for impressions over proper acting, this mix of both will likely draw some attention. Surely Focus Features is counting on that, with its December 7th release date — just a week before The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. (Fortunately, it has little competition, with only Playing the Field opening that weekend, a comedy starring Gerard Butler as a former athlete turned kids’ soccer coach who finds it a little too easy to score with his players’ moms.)
Samuel West stars as King George VI, though he looks a bit more like Colin Firth (who won the Best Actor Oscar for playing George VI in 2010’s The King’s Speech) than the real King, if you ask me. That can’t be a coincidence. Anyway, check out the trailer below:
Hyde Park on Hudson was directed by Roger Michell (Notting Hill) and stars Bill Murray, Laura Linney, Olivia Colman, Samuel West, Elizabeth Marvel, Elizabeth Wilson, Eleanor Bron, and Olivia Williams.
The official synopsis follows after the break:
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Thursday, June 21st, 2012
Via iTunes comes the trailer for a film I hadn’t heard of until today, Celeste & Jesse Forever. Here’s the synopsis:
Celeste (Rashida Jones) and Jesse (Andy Samberg) met in high school, married young and are growing apart. Now thirty, Celeste is the driven owner of her own media consulting firm, Jesse is once again unemployed and in no particular rush to do anything with his life. Celeste is convinced that divorcing Jesse is the right thing to do — she is on her way up, he is on his way nowhere, and if they do it now instead of later, they can remain supportive friends. Jesse passively accepts this transition into friendship, even though he is still in love with her. As the reality of their separation sets in, Celeste slowly and painfully realizes she has been cavalier about their relationship, and her decision, which once seemed mature and progressive, now seems impulsive and selfish. But her timing with Jesse is less than fortuitous. While navigating the turbulent changes in their lives and in their hearts, these two learn that in order to truly love someone, you may have to let them go. The film is a humorous and honest examination of a broken heart and the long, hard road it takes to heal it.
Shot and acted with far more seriousness (and craft) than I expect from the stars, Celeste & Jesse Forever already looks like a smart, bittersweet examination of relationships — and yet no less funny for it. (It probably has a happy ending anyway, but I won’t complain about that if it’s well-earned.)
The film hits theaters in the States on August 3rd.
Wednesday, June 20th, 2012
A teaser trailer for the prequel to Pixar’s Monsters Inc., Monsters University, has found its way to the internet in four very slightly different versions. (The only difference is a one-liner early on — you’ll know which one after you watch the first one. I watched all of them all the way through so you don’t have to. They are all very funny, though!)
The whole film, which was directed by Pixar story artist Dan Scanlon, hits theaters on June 21, 2013.
